Dreams
by PROJECTechnicoloredUnderground
Summary: Things are rarely so simple.  WARNING: Loki/OC?


**Author's Notes:** So, _Pandora's Lie_ was right, and this has indeed turned into a monster. The kind of monster that tickles at your brain while you try and work, or when you're riding around at two in the morning singing Hot Chelle Rae. _This_ monster started last night, followed me to the sales floor, and is now being written for _Pan's_ benefit as much as my own.

This is all very arbitrary and complete speculation. Those darn Asgardians.

Project Technicolored Underground presents:

**Dreams**

_an Avengers Oneshot_

_by SpaceBunny-chan_

* * *

><p>As with so many things concerning children, it had started innocently. There was a whisper or, rather, a <em>pull<em> which was so subtle at first Adelaide had hardly noticed it. It was something she could not explain, except that it was more a feeling than a sound. Like being drawn into a tight embrace, close enough to be aware of a heartbeat: something familiar, but distinctly unique that she could not help but be drawn to it.

She closed her eyes and, just like that, she was there.

_There_ was certainly the question, but not the one she had asked initially. It was not anywhere she had ever been to before, and this was certainly not a place she would have conjured up on her own. The world was unfathomably high, all open skies and golden streets. Cathedrals of architecture her six year old mind could only comprehend as being really, really, _really_ tall.

"Hello…"

And then there was him.

Adelaide had been trying to take in every detail of the ceiling above her head, so impossibly high, that she had almost not heard him. _Almost_. There was a curiosity in his voice that were she older, she might have recognized as concern, but only now caused her to pause.

They stared at one another for a held breath.

He ventured first. "How did you get here, child?"

"I-I-" Adelaide was acutely aware that she was _speaking_ to an adult, even if he was a pretend one, and all of her confidence left in a rush of air "I dun' know…"

"Are you lost, then?" He chanced a careful step closer. Adelaide shook her head, but was much more interested in her bare toes at the bottom of her nightgown than looking at him directly. Not taking that as a bad sign, he tried a different question. "What's your name, child?"

The little red head rubbed her knuckles together fretfully. She wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. Not that he was _real_. But still… Adelaide thought for a moment, her mind taking her back to bed time. Her father had been reading from one of his favorite books, one of his treasures. She wouldn't get in trouble for lying to a stranger, right? "Arwen…"

To her, it was an obvious lie: she had grown up on _the Lord of the Rings _and knew _the Hobbit _cover to cover. She was also aware most children her age were best friends with Barney, a colorful dinosaur who seemed nice enough, but who she was not acquainted with. Adelaide much preferred getting to stay up late enough for her father to tuck her into _the Silmarillion _than finding Waldo.

"It's nice to meet you, Arwen." If he knew this, he did not let on. "My name is Loki."

Shyly, she looked up at him. _He's so pretty_, her mind couldn't help but point out, _and tall_. But more than his height, and more than his dark hair, his eyes were a green like she had never seen, and she found it impossible to _not_ stare.

Her face on fire, Adelaide crumpled her nightgown between her fingers. "…You… have pretty eyes, Loki."

"Thank you." Loki chuckled, a sound that came back from the soaring ceilings to ring in her ears. He had managed to drift close enough to kneel before her, but not so close that she might jump away at the sudden proximity of his voice. "Tell me: do you know where you are?" Adelaide shook her head, and Loki looked thoughtful for a moment. "And you really don't know how you came to be here?"

Adelaide scratched at her head. "Well… I followed…"

"Followed…?" He prompted gently.

"Mm… a noise. No…" Adelaide's cheeks puffed out. She was supposed to be _descriptive_, or she wouldn't be able to explain: that was what her mother had taught her. Not that it had ever made any of the other children understand, because they couldn't see the things she did. But she needed Loki to understand. "Mmmmmm… a sound, like… someone talking to me. But… they weren't using words…"

"So you were drawn here." Loki stated simply, and she could tell he was putting together pieces that she didn't have for this puzzle. He seemed lost in this thought, mulling it around by the way his fingers twitched, before looking at her completely. "Arwen, this is a dream. All you have to do to go back is want to wake up." She must have made a move to protest, for his finger rose ever so slightly. "And promise me, you won't follow the _voice _again."

"… Okay. I promise."

Adelaide closed her eyes with a purpose. When she opened them, she was unsure how to feel when realized Loki was gone and she was back in her room with the purple trim.

* * *

><p>Adelaide tried to keep her promise.<p>

Over time the memory became blurred and her curiosity seemed to wonder back towards a familiar feeling, one she _knew_. _Something_ she had lived. It was the intangible state that started to follow her. The whisper began to creep into her thoughts in the middle of class, rather than stay in her dreams where she might remember. She was being drawn to something, somewhere she had been before, but it was not as simple as just going. There was no way to just get up and start walking, or hop on her bike and ride towards the sunset. Deep down, she knew that wasn't the answer.

_Promise me_

But what? She couldn't remember.

* * *

><p>Adelaide broke her promise, and it was only obvious to her when she opened her eyes to vaulted ceilings and magnificent clouds.<p>

"Who are you?"

And impossibly striking green eyes.

"…Loki?"

Realization dawned with a mix of amazement and distress. "_Arwen_?"

Suddenly, everything she had been trying to remember returned in a charge of excitement like electricity up her spine. That night she had fallen asleep to _The Lord of the Rings_, and "woken up" here. _Here_. Where was here? Adelaide looked up, seeing the same awe-inspiring ceiling, and doing nearly the same thing in trying to take in every detail as she turned to crane her neck.

"What are you doing here, Arwen?"

She stilled- _just like that night_, her mind recollected- and looked at him. _Really_ looked at him. He was exactly the same. As if she had seen him only yesterday, not nearly ten years later. The realization was startling.

_But he's still taller than me. Typical._

He did not look amused, which caused Adelaide to become very aware of every part of him. Not only could she plainly see him, she could… _feel_ him. As if he were really standing right in front of her, and was not just something she had dreamed up.

_That_ might not be good.

"_What_ are you going here, Arwen?" Loki asked again, with a bit more force. No, something much more close to dread. Definitely not a good thing.

"I-I-" _God_, she was even stuttering _just like_ back then. Dream or not, she could feel the hairs on her neck stand on end. "I… couldn't remember what I'd promised. I had to remember- oh."

He stared at her. "Arwen."

"… _Oh._ That I wouldn't-

"**Arwen**."

"I promised I wouldn't-" Her mind flooded with more thoughts than she could handle, before grinding to a halt on sudden clarity. "Am I in your _dream_?"

Loki stilled instantly, staring at her with wide eyes.

Adelaide's stomach did a flip, all fumble and no grace.

"You need to go." He said abruptly.

"What? Why-"

"You remember what you promised me, don't you?" He cut her off, his voice losing some control. She registered fear very clearly on the face she remembered as being pretty, but now very plainly saw was quite handsome. "_Please_, Arwen, you need to go_. Now._"

Something about the way he pleaded with those ridiculously green eyes told her, more than her gut, that he was serious. That there was reason to be afraid.

She closed her eyes, painfully tight to shut out the intensity. When she opened them, she sat up with a strangled noise to the room she never bothered to unpack.

* * *

><p>Adelaide was going to wait until morning. There was no reason to wake her parents up for this, and there was no way she was going to be getting any sleep tonight. They weren't any more equipped to deal with this than she was, and tomorrow she could ask the closest thing to an expert.<p>

But the decision was out of her hands. At 3:24 AM, as her alarm clock proudly told her, her door bell rang.

She beat her parents to the front door by five minutes, and, really, shouldn't have been surprised to see Amelia Salvador-Randall standing there with her daughter Selina in toe. As the parents talked, Adelaide tried to explain to Selina what had transpired. Selina attempted understanding, though something in her eyes told Adelaide she was as much at a loss for an answer. The look of unease set on Selina's face was not concealed, nor was it absent from her mother's when Amelia returned to speak with them.

"Addy," Amelia began gently, trying to keep anything negative from her voice even as her face pulled tight. "I'm going fix this. It won't hurt, I promise." She assured quickly at Adelaide's wide eyes. "But this is… too much. I'm going to help you forget."

Adelaide felt panic surge through her. "No! If I forget-"

"_Sssh_, don't worry. Trust me." Amelia soothed, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "If you remember any of it, you might be tempted back. I have to take it away, so you won't feel the _pull_ again."

When she awoke the next morning, true to Amelia's word, Adelaide remembered none of it. She did not recall wondering into another's dreams, nor the seal Amelia had placed on her to keep the memories locked away until she could properly control it.

Adelaide once again forgot her promise.

* * *

><p><strong>Avengers © Marvel<strong>

**Original Characters © Their Original Owners**


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